Add support for Javascript / Typescript

[stuhood]

Pants v2 should have "some sort" of support for Javascript and Typescript builds. Deciding exactly what that would look like would require discussion with some potential users, but it could mean 1) only linting support, 2) support for package to be consumed from Docker, 3) full integration with run, test, package, etc... or anything in between.

Pants v1 had support for building node.js applications using either npm or yarn as the package manager.

[nikswyftx]

The first thing to keep in mind for this would be to always defer commands for building etc. To the package.json

It's extremely common in the ecosystem for people to implement monorepos as a co location of independent projects.

Lerna is great because it allows you to link packages between each other and then it also gives you a dependency graph for knowing the order in which to build your projects. It's also horrible because it's magic and then error prone when you inevitably introduce a circular dependency.

[MrwanBaghdad]

Are there any updates or a timeline for Javascript and Typescript support? Support for JS/TS is currently preventing us from considering pants as a build system

[sureshjoshi]

@stuhood I can take a crack at porting over some of what I did over here: https://github.com/sureshjoshi/pants-plugins/tree/main/pants-plugins/experimental/nodejs

Similar to what @tdyas did for C/C++ - I can pull over some targets and get tailor going. I've already got PrettierJS for formatting running.

I'll, naturally, need some help with deciding on the right target scopes, naming, etc.

[Eric-Arellano]

@sureshjoshi that would be awesome!! Similar to @tdyas 's thoughts, I think it is totally valid for language support to initially be light-weight, like fmt and lint. A ton of value to ./pants fmt :: running everything in your repo, even if you can't yet use it for tests etc.

[sureshjoshi]

👍🏽

I can probably get a PR in this weekend for target + tailor support, then another for Prettier - if I can just get 2-3 hours free.

Will take to Slack to ask some bikeshedding Q's right now though.

[sureshjoshi]

FYI for anyone who comes across this - until the PR, it'll be worked on here: https://github.com/sureshjoshi/pants/tree/14190-js-ts-support